A TRAINING COURSE on logging and forest operations has recently been held in north Burma, organized jointly by FAO, the International Labour Organisation, and the Government of Burma. Lasting six weeks, the course was to give experience to trainees from countries of southeast Asia with modern techniques, machines and equipment. A rather similar course was organized by FAO in the Philippines some years ago and it is hoped shortly to arrange further courses in Africa and Latin America.
The course in Burma has again revealed how logging problems in the tropics differ from those in temperate areas and that they cannot be resolved by the simple transfer of methods and equipment.
Most logging in the tropics still amounts to the selective felling of valuable hardwoods. The wide dispersion of merchantable species and their often large dimensions, together with the lack of access roads and other communications, greatly influence the applicability of European and American mechanical equipment and transportation systems.
In particular, for example, the heavy logging equipment developed in the forests of the Pacific coast of North America is unsuitable owing to the small logging volume on any given area in the tropics, which means that the timber cannot support high operational costs.
The introduction of tractors to tropical forests has, however, caused a great change in working methods and in forest penetration. Many timber species, hitherto of low commercial value, have come into the range of merchantable timber. The exploitable volume per hectare has been increased and logging costs reduced. But great heat and humidity, and often long rainy seasons, affect the working conditions as well as the choice of mechanical equipment for yarding and hauling. Working time may average only six hours per day, and about 250 working days a year. Log transportation by road is often limited to the dry season, and rafting is usually possible only during the rainy season. Vehicles may have to be protected underneath by thick steel plates, and sometimes with reinforced cabins for the drivers' protection. Moreover manual work and animal haulage remains cheaper in many countries where the slower pace is of less importance.
Forest exploitation in the tropics is generally started near the sea coast or river shores and then penetrates into the interior. Thus the transportation problem in the tropics extends from the difficult conditions in mangrove and tidal forests, in swamp forests and in seasonally inundated forests, to the forests of the plains and then to those in hilly and mountainous areas. All these features may be encountered within one country.
FAO has frequently experienced the need for a simple background paper on timber transportation in the tropics, for use not only in connection with the periodic training courses referred to earlier but also as reference material for the training that will have to be carried out under national courses or in connection with forestry projects coming into being under the United Nations Special Fund for Economic Development. Such a paper is being printed in this and the following issues of Unasylva.
